I was living in San Francisco in 1970, and listened to this song over and over. I always loved the Stones, but Merry Clayton! Dear God, what a voice. Her voice made the song transcendent. In a recent NYTimes interview she recalls that studio session and singing that song. “At first, I told them ‘I’m not trying to do no ‘rape’ and no ‘murder,’” Clayton said, quoting from the song’s famous refrain. “Then it hit me that we’re talking about Vietnam and racism and police killing people. It’s just a shot away. I felt like I was screaming out from my ancestors to give us shelter from this world.”
Exactly. 2021. 1970 seems like only yesterday.
ReplyDeleteIt does.
DeleteHere we are 50 years later, and it's still just a shot away.
ReplyDeleteDisturbing, isn't it?
DeleteDid you ever see "20 feet from stardom", about the back up singers? Really great.
ReplyDeleteHow many more years to fight racism? Why can't we get along?
I did see something like that not too long ago on tv. I must check to make sure I've seen it. Because I want to.
DeleteSad isn't it? Nothing has changed and I feel only gotten worse. I lived life in the 70s fighting for the same things we're fighting for now.
ReplyDeleteWe are.
DeleteIt is a powerful song. 1970 was the year my brother was kill ed in Vietnam.
ReplyDeleteThat breaks my heart. I lost friends, and had family serve - but to lose a brother in war...
DeleteI liked the Beatles, but loved the Stones.
ReplyDeleteAs much as things change, they, unfortunately, remain the same.
I confess to being a Beatlemaniac in the early-mid 60's. but by the late 60's, it was the Stones who kept my interest. Still, I love the Beatles.
DeleteRolling Stones: best band ever.
ReplyDeleteI often think about the person I was then, listening to music and not a clue about the lyrics as I didn't have a word of English in my brain.
ReplyDeleteBut always a Stones person, never a Beatles person. Even then.
Once, crazy about A Bridge over Troubled Water, a friend wrote down the words and we went through a dictionary trying to make sense of it. Troubled water? Seriously, WTF?
I have a real love for Celia Cruz's music, but I can't understand a word of what she is saying.
DeleteGREAT song. San Francisco in 1970 must have been fantastic!
ReplyDeleteIn all truth, by fall of 1970, things had begun to settle down and the scene was as vibrant as it had been in the late 60s.
DeleteAnd that nothing much has changed for the better since the lyrics reminded us of that Truth is just tragic. I really think Music has addressed many Social ills and brought Issues to the forefront that we should be passionate about and be part of the resistance of.
ReplyDeleteI was born too early for both the Stones and the Beatles; at what I suspect was the equivalent period of my life I bought my second LP - a mono (yes, mono) version of Mozart's clarinet concerto - and I was away. Then came his operas (Figaro the best ever by anybody) and I nourished them for decades until on one strange day, still not entirely explained, I found myself being handed the score of an aria from a Mozart opera and told to get on with it. And now, that part of me at least, may die happy.
ReplyDeleteOther music provided a background since I had two daughters and they were never going to adopt the fusty preferences of their old man. At some point I heard Satisfaction and the refrain seemed to suggest a riveting machine. I recognised the music's energy and was able to appreciate it in another way when others - far younger than me - danced to it, notably on a ski-ing holiday. Perhaps the stumbling block for me was that Satisfaction would never be singable.
Much much later I heard the song Mother's Little Helper (it could hardly have been further away in musical aspiration than Satisfaction) and was astonished to be told it too was by The Stones. Had I perhaps missed something? Perhaps. But all the time, unknown to me and yet possibly presaged in some mysterious way, was that moment in Little Dewchurch when I stumbled through:
O Isis und Osiris, schenket
der Weisheit Geist dem neuen Paar
then turned my back on my teacher of a mere thirty minutes and blubbered uncontrollably. A door had opened.
There are two types of music - good and bad - and we ourselves are the only judge and jury in these matters.
I will tell you something that flummoxes me. I will never understand it. I have an uncle. He is perhaps 6 or 7 years older than me. I remember watching him, and he was a radical. He was a hippie. My father couldn't abide him and his crazy thinking, but here I was a young teenager, and I was slowly coming to the conclusion that my father's view of the world was wrong. I grew up. I became a feminist. I believe in equality with all my heart. I believe in being kind and doing good in the world. This thinking put a real divide between my family and me. I wanted my children to know that there are things that you don't turn a blind eye to. Racism. Sexism. Ignorance. My parents are gone now. I had cause to cross paths with that uncle from all those years back. He is a tRUMPer. A conspiracy believing radical right. Racist.
ReplyDeleteHow does that happen?
He's not the only one, but he's probably the one that shocks me the most.
I'm not sure how one transforms from caring to non-caring. I know a lot of people who fancied themselves hippies back in the day. The overwhelming majority still hold the same basic political and progressive beliefs. I'm sorry your uncle didn't live up to his own expectations of right and wrong. Truly.
DeleteI lived on Mare Island Naval Base in 1970, in the Bay area. Even though it was a military base, we had a peace sign on our car and my parents listened to popular music, so I was exposed to this at a very young age.
ReplyDelete